Kill Your Darlings
by shortcurlytop99
Summary: These are snapshots of unseen moments in Eastern Promises. In two rainy days time in London, a bizzare encounter leads to a series of events between Nikolai, Anna, and Kirill that give better insight into the tattooed, violent family of the Vory V Zakone


**Chapter 1**

Anna poked curiously at her greasy paddy and bun, wondering what kind of person with any sort of culinary experience might find this sanitary never mind appetizing. She was sitting at one of the many cheap, plastic booths that crowded around the grimy rectangular window that looked out on to the rainy street. Helen was still at the counter, probably still locked in a heated argument with the pimpled cashier, and Anna took a giant slurp of her root beer; the only edible thing at the table. She didn't usually like root beer (it was too sweet for her liking) but she felt like she needed the energy boost—a recent cat fight with a fostering agency had left her tired and not very hopeful for Christine. The baby was almost a month old now and the government was getting suspicious of her prolonged stay at the hospital as were, Anna admitted ruefully, her supervisors. However, Anna greeted any sort of suggestion at removing the long-dead mother's child with protective fierceness; they just didn't understand. Letting Christine go into a world that seemed, now more than ever, wrought with evil was practically a death sentence. Even now, with Christine safely at the hospital, Anna felt antsy, as if not being by the child's side caused a nervous tick right near her heart. Another anxious gulp at the tooth-splitting soft drink, another glance out at the stormy elements that ailed the sky and the unfortunate pedestrians who walked below it; with a loud huff, Anna looked up in time to see her mother finally turn up with her tray wielded like a weapon against all ill-tempered customer services. Her expression was not forthcoming.

"Bloody idiots," Helen grumbled darkly, plopping down opposite Anna and ripping away the wrappings that swathed her pita with swift, angry movements, "It's a marvel none of them go into catatonic shocks whenever someone turns on an oven, they're that incompetent…"

"Mmm," Anna murmured, not really listening. Two men in long coats were just approaching the restaurant with their heads bent against the wind and, even though their faces were bowed towards the sidewalk, Anna felt they looked somewhat familiar.

"I really shouldn't be eating this," Helen sighed as if the weight of every middle-aged woman's health concerns rode on her shoulders, "It's chock full of calories and probably has enough salt in it to kill a horse. Anna, you're in the business, is this really okay for me to…"

"It's a perfectly normal choice in food," Anna answered distractedly, tapping her fingernails against the Formica tabletop. The men were conferring with one another under the awning, just beyond the doubled doors, and a low knot was forming low in Anna's belly as she watched.

"You're not listening to me," Helen complained, sucking bitterly at her own cup of root beer, "you know what I read in the papers yesterday, Anna? England's obesity rate is now rivaling America's. Can you believe it? I told Stepan that Jamie Oliver was right but you know how he is, stubborn as a mule…"

"Mum!" Anna ducked her head, heart in her throat. The men had passed close, too close, to their booth and Anna impatiently pulled her mother down to her level. Helen's eyes were wide.

"Anna! Are you mad?" Helen whispered furiously, pouting at the hot sauce that had slipped out of her pita and on to her cashmere sweater, "look what you did to my shirt."

"Mum, it's him!" Anna peeked cautiously over her mother's shoulder at the leather-clad back of a certain silver-haired driver, "Remember, the man we met at the diner the other day!"

"Yes, Anna," Helen said grudgingly, "I don't easily forget people your uncle spits at."

"Never mind that," Anna looked quickly down at the tabletop, hoping that Nicolai's brief glance over his shoulder hadn't touched her, "he's here. Right now."

"Him?" Helen craned her neck and frowned, "who's the fellow beside him?"

Who was it? Anna managed the most fleeting look over the top of Helen's head while hoping that her tall root beer hid her face. _Oh. Perfect._

At that moment, Kirill had decided to open his mouth and address Nicolai with a half-smirk, eyes flashing in mirth. Anna's skin seemed to shiver from inside out. His sleaziness seemed to shine from his hair (now wet from the rain) down to the toes of his leather boots.

"So," Kirill sniffed, teeth peeking from behind stretched lips, "what are you getting?"

"Combo looks good," Nicolai replied softly, eyes scanning the menu above them.

"Shit food anyway," Kirill sucked at his two front teeth at some sort of impression of a whistle, "not like papa's."

"Your papa is not in the fast food business; Russian food can't be good for you all the time, can it?"

"Not for me," Kirill insists, bumping his friend's shoulder in a friendliness Anna though pretty disbelieving, "raised on the shit, man; papa doesn't know how to cook nothing else, anal old man."

"Anna," Helen pulled at her sleeve, yanking Anna out of her daze. "Stop eavesdropping!"

Anna wrenched her arm away and looked back in time to catch Nicolai's eye. Without expression, he nodded to her. Anna felt her own head bob back like the nerves had been snipped loose. Then he smiled.

_Oh crap. _It wasn't the kind of smile that left her giddy, like the one he had given her when he drove her home; that little twitch at the corner of his mouth that grew gradually, like the opening petals of a blooming flower, until lightness washed all over his face. This smile left her cold, like kissing a lifeless lover. The hairs on her arms started to rise.

Kirill, oblivious, was speaking rapid Russian at Nicolai as he ordered his meal. The girl at the cash register smartly spent as little time as possible in view of the two men and busied herself frequently with the preparation of other meals on the way down the line of waiting customers. With his tray resting between two large, tattooed hands, Anna watched as Nicolai navigated his way through the tables and booths, Kirill at his heels, before coming at stop in front of…

"Ah, what a surprise," Nicolai surveyed both of them through sparkling but unreadable eyes, "Mother, daughter…but no uncle; let me guess, gone to spit in other Russian's face?"

"What are you doing here?" Anna demanded, her bewilderment quickly dissolving into unreasonable anger. Nicolai raised his eyebrows.

"Getting something to eat, of course."

By this time, Kirill had joined them. His face was just as surprised as Anna's.

"Here?" his mouth curled as if the words swelled in his mouth like soured milk, "of all places in bloody restaurant and you chose here?"

"Lovely to see you too, Kirill," Anna couldn't help voicing and in response received a narrowed eyed glare from Kirill and a kick in the shin from her mother.

"Free country," Nicolai announced firmly, planting himself beside Helen and meeting Anna's eyes with a small grin. Looking slightly stunned and slowly building toward fury, Kirill reluctantly dropped beside Anna, making her shift until her side was flush against the cold glass of the window.

"So," Nicolai broke the awkward silence that spun between them, "how is little girl?"

"What?" Anna blinked, a little preoccupied with remaining a good distance from Kirill's still damp coat, and flushed under Nicolai's searching gaze. Helen was staring at her as if she'd just entered the Twilight Zone.

"Little girl? The one you named…Christine?"

"You remembered," Anna remarked. Nicolai didn't smile.

"I always remember names; it's just the faces that confuse me. They all look the same after a while." Casting an amused look at Kirill's stiff expression and shoulders, Nicolai popped an almost blackened fry in his mouth, long fingers playing with the crispy sticks that stuck out of their carton like broken spokes on a bicycle wheel.

"Nobody from Tatiana's family has contacted us," Anna eventually offered, careful not to look at Kirill, "And the foster agencies have been hounding the hospital…"

"Foster care unfortunate place for children," Nicolai interrupted roughly, his sudden engrossment in his fries forgotten, "though maybe not as bad as orphanage."

"Have you ever been in an orphanage?" Kirill questioned dubiously after snagging a handful of Nicolai's fries, "A Russian Orphanage?"

"No," Nicolai replied evenly enough, "though why everything with 'Russian' in front of it might try to be telling me something…"

"A different way of life," Kirill explained and, giving Anna an indifferent glance, added, "not that English would know anything of it."

"Kirill," Nicolai began patiently, "don't be rude. Your papa teaches you no manners."

"Don't talk shit at me," Kirill warned lowly and Anna noticed Helen turn a more prominent shade of white, "I'll teach you something about manners, patronizing little shit."

"Calm down," Nicolai returned in Russian, "You've been drinking too much."

"Bullshit," Kirill said with a broken smile, "it's my medicine, Nicolai: never can get enough of medicine, can you?"

Nicolai didn't look impressed.

"Ever heard of overdose?"

"You ruin all my fun," Kirill pouted, switching to Ukrainian and losing Anna's line of understanding, "You ruin your own fun too; you never go out, never cut loose, you didn't even like fucking my girls back at the house…"

"Not now," Nicolai abruptly answered back in English, "we must be considerate of Anna and her mother, Kirill."

"I know how you can be considerate," Helen shakily instructed, finally finding her voice, "leaving us in peace, that's how."

Nicolai cocked his head and stared at her for so long Helen lost the little color she'd regained and Anna felt her blood run icy in her veins. Finally, Nicolai nodded and slapped Kirill's hand away from his fries without taking his eyes off of Helen.

"I thought you said you weren't hungry." Nicolai quizzed him with a frown. Kirill looked wounded.

"I can't change my mind?"

"You can't change his mind when you didn't bother to pay for the food your stealing. You forget your wallet too liberally." Nicolai admonished and gestured vaguely to his back, "look at my shoulders and you will see the marks of a wandering hand." Nicolai had switched back to Ukrainian.

Kirill smirked in admiration.

"You never told me that story."

"Later," Nicolai said in English. He frowned at Anna. "But if Christine is not going to foster care," he questioned as if they'd been continuing a conversation, "who is she going to stay with?"

"The hospital, for now," Anna pushed her hair absently out of her eyes and traced the tabletop with her finger nail, "but the awful truth of the matter is that Christine has nobody." Anna swallowed, refusing to let that lump rise in her throat but, of course, it managed to crack her voice because talking about this uncertain facet of Christine's already shaky future made Anna feel incredibly and unreasonably guilty. Nicolai, shockingly, looked sympathetic.

"Why not with you?"

"Me?" Anna shook her head with a lopsided smile, "I'm afraid that's not possible."

"Legal trouble?"

"Income," Anna blushed, "I don't have enough to support a growing child."

"Ask for a raise," Kirill imputed through a mouthful of Nicolai's burger, apparently forgetting that Anna was Enemy Number One and should not be acknowledged in any way remotely friendly.

"He's right," Helen said softly. Anna made a face; having two mobsters and her mother agreeing with one another was a little too weird for her liking.

"It doesn't matter," she finished off the rest of her root beer and pinned Nicolai with an accusing glare and asked innocently, "How does Semyon like Tatiana's diary, considering he swindled me out of our original deal?"

"My father doesn't swindle," Kirill corrects after a sip from Nicolai's coke bottle, "he makes deals fair and square. You must have heard him wrong."

Anna crossed her arms, "he said he'd give me Tatiana's family address in exchange for the diary. He didn't hold up his end of the bargain."

Kirill tilted his chin and rolled his eyes in condescension, "And let me guess: he got the driver to receive and deliver? Little advice?" Kirill leaned forward and Anna reeled back until she felt her head smack against the window, "if you want what you ask for, trade hands only with my father, never his working men. That's the only way you'll know he's sincere."

"This would have been wonderful to know a few weeks ago," Anna snapped and Nicolai coughed, sitting up and eyeing Kirill meaningfully. It was then that Anna noticed Kirill's hand tightened on the edge of the table top.

"We leave now." Nicolai met Anna's eyes. " I come by hospital tomorrow with bike."

"My bike?"

"You left it in the rain,"

"I didn't know you bothered fixing it."

"I have passion for motorbikes. I told you, people in my village rode them all the time." Nicolai stood up and heaved Kirill up by the back of his jacket, "We go."

"I'm going!" Kirill exploded, staggering out of Nicolai's grip, "you're so pushy!"

For once, a genuine smile crossed Nicolai's face. But the relief soon waned and left his face as sharp and hard as ever.

"Goodbye, Anna. Helen,"

The two men disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. Anna stared down at Nicolai's leftovers. Helen was slumped in her seat, lips still pale with fright. The whole exchange had been quite bizarre.

"My God," Helen said with a wave of her hand in front of her face, "I thought that slick-haired devil would pull a damned knife on us for sure!"

"Which one?"

"Either one!" Helen burst, upset coloring her tone, "Jesus, Anna, are you blind? Why you even let them sit down in the first place is beyond me."

"I know him. He drove me home. He…"

"Made Stepan spit in his face, he works for the _vors y zakone. _He's dangerous!" Helen narrowed her eyes, "And, Anna, for the love of Jehovah, you do _not_ know him."

"Not every man with a Russian Accent and tattoos is a killer, mum." Anna hissed lowly. Helen shook her head.

"Honey," she said sadly, "you don't need to be Freud to know how someone like him works," she jerked her head at the swinging double doors, "that other fellow was right; it's a different lifestyle, a different world. And we don't belong there. And we never will.


End file.
